Just to show you that we were on the road by 6:45. Our motel room had a kitchen, so Roy made oatmeal and coffee.
On the way out of town, we met an MS rider looking for breakfast. We had been told that no cafes opened until 7:00, and she seemed distressed to hear that.
The first 9 miles were lovely--no wind and the trees reached their shade across the road. Soon, we met the only other MS rider we saw all day. He told us that many of the riders had left at 4:30 a.m. in order to beat the wind. Wow. He must have been right because, we never saw another MS rider, although we saw their support van a couple of times.
I'm taken with all the abandoned homestead cabins. We have seen several each day in North Dakota. We were riding on a beautiful road through an area called Golden Valley. My photos don't do it justice. Roy kept saying "this is epic!" referring to the landscape and the ridiculous wind and heat.
Soon,we spotted the town of Beach in the distance, still a few hills away.
We had a second breakfast at the Flying J Truck Plaza, and then we headed out into the Interstate, as our back road, Old Highway 10, turned to dirt. Beach is only a couple of miles from Montana.
We chuckled at the path beaten up to the sign.
From the Interstate, this group of trees looked like an oasis.
Nine miles inside Montana, we came to the town of Wibaux, pronounced wee-bow (as in bow and arrow). The lady at the visitor center confirmed that there was nothing between Wibaux and Glendive, 29 miles away.
Since it was quite hot and very windy, we were worried about running out of water. We stopped in a little store in town, where the owner?/cashier? and her son were excited that we were the 10th and 11th cyclists to stop in that day. Most of them had been quite a bit earlier. It was now about noon. We bought a six-pack of bottled water to make sure we had enough.
The wind really picked up. We agreed to stop at every mile marker to drink. It felt precarious to take one hand off the handlebars. Photos were taken while at a stop. I finally packed up DaBrim because it was affecting my balance.
Roy stopped and took a video of the wind rippling through grasses. I wish I could share it here. Earlier in the day I remarked that pedaling felt like we were walked in waist-deep water. The waves of grass reinforced that feeling.
Clouds rolled in and we could see it raining in the distance but, thankfully, we only experienced a few drops.
Everywhere we have looked since we got to Montana, we feel like we are in the middle of a painted Western set. Roy jokingly complained that there were no scenic overlooks. There is no way to choose a scenic view.
We rolled into Glendive at 3:45. So we were at it for almost nine hours, to cover 65 miles. The odometer said we averaged 9.4 mph, which seemed unbelievable because we felt like cheering when we saw 10 mph on the speedometer. Roy says we did a lot of stopping.
We are staying at the Holiday Inn Express. We ate at the Yellowstone River Bar and Casino. The casino must subsidize the food and drinks because beers were $3 and our steak and salmon entrees were well under $20 each.
Tomorrow we are meeting a motorcycling friend who is touring the West on his Kawasaki Concours motorcycle in Circle, MT, supposedly for lunch. Seems ambitious since Circle is 50 miles away. But we will try our early up and out again. We can't wait to compare notes with him.